Free Kindle books & bargains for Friday, December 8, 2017

As Little Missington’s first Christmas baby in fifty years and the daughter of Christmas When You Like It party-planners, Holly West has been surrounded by the holiday spirit since birth. Trouble is, she’s not exactly filled with festive cheer. In fact, Holly can’t wait to ditch the tinsel and Santa suits for champagne and celebs, and become a party-planner to the stars.

When British TV star Dean Layton hires her parents’ company to throw his holiday bash in Manhattan, Holly jumps at the chance to help, confident she can handle a little Christmas in exchange for access to Dean’s exclusive world.

Olivia Blakesley, self-proclaimed spinster extraordinaire, is quite happy with her life. She has her studies and her duties, what need does she have of a husband? With five sisters married she knows the reality does not live up to the promise, and does not need to personally experiment with the state to know she would be ill-suited to it. However, she finds herself envious of at least one aspect of marriage. But to experience the physical side of marriage, one doesn’t need a husband, all one needs is the right man…

Nathaniel Jenkins knows his duty. Marry a young girl from a respectable family and father an heir, no matter how cold the endless parade of suitable girls leaves him. But a shocking proposal from a scholarly spinster leaves him wondering if unsuitable is just what he’s looking for.

Within these walls, he became my solace, my sanctuary and my strength.

I am not strong. I am just a survivor of circumstance.
Isn’t that what we all do? Survive?

Each of us has our own set of circumstances to muddle through. Mine are just more…complicated.

Born with a severe heart defect, I’ve seen the inside of a hospital room more than my own bedroom.

I was drowning, a prisoner to the illness that owned me, until he appeared. He thinks he’s blocked out the world with his tattoos and hard exterior, but I see the real Jude, the one he so desperately wants to forget.

When Isla Greenwood discovers a nude photo of herself online, she immediately knows her ex-boyfriend is to blame. Worried that her family and work colleagues will discover its existence, she withdraws from everyone and turns to food to suppress her emotions.

Twenty-five kilos later, Isla has hit rock bottom and realises she needs the help of her fitness model cousin, Grace, to help get her back on track. But when Grace is injured, Isla finds she lacks the skills and motivation to continue her fitness regime on her own.

Fortunately, another saviour arrives in the form of Wes, a cute local personal trainer who convinces Isla to check out his gym.

A Holiday novella. The Shoemakers and Ferraros plan to spend Christmas in Texas with Larry and Jane Ann’s brother and then take a camping trip through the Southwest. But those plans are stopped cold when they hit a rogue ice storm in Missouri and they end up snowbound in a campground. And that’s just the beginning. Includes recipes and winter camping tips.

Translated into more than seventeen languages, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is the world’s most widely used instructional drawing book. Whether you are drawing as a professional artist, as an artist in training, or as a hobby, this book will give you greater confidence in your ability and deepen your artistic perception, as well as foster a new appreciation of the world around you. This revised/updated fourth edition includes:
• crucial updates based on recent research on the brain’s plasticity and the enormous value of learning new skills/ utilizing the right hemisphere of the brain;
• new focus on how the ability to draw on the strengths of the right hemisphere can serve as an antidote to the increasing left-brain emphasis in American life-the worship of all that is linear, analytic, digital, etc.;
• an informative section that addresses recent research linking early childhood “scribbling” to later language development and the importance of parental encouragement of this activity;
• and new reproductions of master drawings throughout

It is Christmas Eve, 1957, and there are cozier places to be than the cockpit of a de Havilland Vampire fighter plane. But for the Royal Air Force pilot who has just taken off from West Germany, this single-seat jet is the only way to make it back to England for Christmas morning. His flight plan is simple; the fuel tank is full. In sixty-six minutes, he will be back in Blighty. But then the plane begins to fail.

First the compass goes haywire, then the radio dies. Lost and alone above the English coast, the pilot is searching for a landing strip when the fog closes in, signaling certain death. He has given up hope when a second shadow appears—a Mosquito fighter-bomber of World War II vintage.

From the moment he woke that early March morning, Chase Hampton knew, once he was released from prison later that day, he was never going back. No matter what.

Born into a wealthy but flawed North Carolina shipbuilding family, Chase was somehow immune to the dysfunction. The sky was the limit for the 18-year old football prodigy, until one terrible event changed the course of his life and prison became his new home. Through the highs and lows of his incarceration, there was one person he couldn’t forget, no matter how hard he’d tried: childhood best friend Bailey Masters.

Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. According to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores their newly discovered brilliance and how it came about.

As she travels around the world to the most cutting-edge frontiers of research, Ackerman not only tells the story of the recently uncovered genius of birds but also delves deeply into the latest findings about the bird brain itself that are shifting our view of what it means to be intelligent.

A deliciously romantic and humorous read about love, loss and starting again.

Sophie Bailey is your typical yummy mummy. She lives in a small village where life is all coffee mornings and party plan. You may think she has the perfect life – she certainly did until she woke up one morning and her husband dropped a life changing bomb into the mix. Maybe I should let her explain.

Hi my name is Sophie Bailey.

One day, completely out of the blue, my perfect life explodes all around me and now things will never be the same again.

My rose tinted glasses are firmly knocked off my head and suddenly I am thrust into a whole new world.

Crawford Family Series: Book 1 – 1887 Debutante Julia Crawford endures a lifetime of subtle ridicule as the plump, silly daughter of a prominent Boston family. Julia strikes out on her own to gain independence, traveling to the Midwest to marry an aging shopkeeper and care for his mother. Julia finds her new home rough and uncivilized after the sophistication of a big city, while closely held secrets threaten to ruin Julia’s one chance at love.

Jake Shelling was sixteen and grew up quick when his parents died from influenza on the South Dakota prairie. Left with a half-cleared farm and two young sisters, he spent little time on his own needs . . . until now. At thirty-five, he figured it was high time to have some sons and a mail order bride would suit him just fine.

It’s been ten years since Sasha Keaton left her West Virginia hometown . . . since she escaped the twisted serial killer known as the Groom. Returning to help run her family inn means being whole again, except for one missing piece. The piece that falls into place when Sasha’s threatened—and FBI agent Cole Landis vows to protect her the way he couldn’t a decade ago.

First one woman disappears; then another, and all the while, disturbing calling cards are left for the sole survivor of the Groom’s reign of terror. Cole’s never forgiven himself for not being there when Sasha was taken, but he intends to make up for it now . . . because under the quirky sexiness Cole first fell for is a steely strength that only makes him love Sasha more.